The Greatest Treasure
by eKtHeSpAz123
Summary: Mary Bennett is plain compared to her sisters. She is never payed much attention. Then, one night, she make a decision that will alter the cousre of her life. R&R! I promise the story is better than the summary!
1. The Argument and the Decision

Hi everyone! Okay, so I wrote this for English and my teacher said I should put it on here so here goes! Mind you, this is my first FanFic ever so please be nice and I would definitely appreciate all constructive (that being the operative words here) criticism! Thanks and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Pride and Prejudice belongs to the amazing Jane Austen. Besides, if I did own something, I'd be rich, which I am not.

It was after the ball at Netherfield. My mum, Jane, Elizabeth, Lydia, Kitty and I were all sitting in the lounge, discussing the evening's events.

"Oh girls, I'm just so thrilled!" said my mum. "You girls are all admired by many great and respectable men. Jane, judging on Mr. Bingley's behavior towards you, I think that soon you two will be engaged! And Mr. Collins seemed quite interested in you, Elizabeth. Why, I daresay that he might make a proposal; he seems to like you so much. Lydia, Kitty, the officers seem to enjoy your company very much; perhaps, you too might be married soon. It is quite a comfort to me that none of my girls will end up being an old maid."

"Except Mary!" cried Lydia. "She never socializes at the balls. All she does is just play the piano and read!"

Like I haven't heard that before. Hello, my name is Mary. And, just like the name implies, I appear to be very plain. I have mousy brown hair with grey eyes and very thick glasses. Compared to all my sisters, I am the "homeliest." Or at least that's what my mum and Lydia say. They are always criticizing the fact that I don't have any interest in getting married and that I always just keep to myself. Normally, I just ignore them, but lately this has been getting very annoying.

"Well, at least I have some common sense," I retorted. "Unlike you." Lydia rolled her eyes and Jane looked away uncomfortably. Kitty and Elizabeth just exchanged a quick glance, knowing that an argument was about to happen.

"Mary, she does have a point. You NEVER socialize. You're always reading or playing music or being alone. How are you supposed to meet a nice man, hmm? Aren't you afraid of becoming an old maid? Oh dear, that would be just awful! You would be an embarrassment to this family," said Mum.

"Mary, we just have your best interests at heart," Lydia sneered.

Now, Jane cut in, "You should stop mocking poor Mary. It is very cruel and what you say is untrue."

I was getting mad. The last thing I wanted was sympathy from Jane, the perfect, beautiful daughter. _I don't need your help; I can fight my own battles! _I thought. But instead of saying that, I rolled my eyes and ignored my mother and Lydia. They kept rambling on and on about how I wasn't very pretty, how I was too bookish and isolated, and how I was an embarrassment to the family because I wasn't clever or handsome. I pretended to be absorbed in the book I was reading. Since I was paying them no mind, I was surprised when Lydia came up to me and started playing with my hair.

"You know," she said coyly, "you would be so much prettier if you did something with your hair! It's just a plain mess! Let me see, perhaps I could—"

I cut her off. "Will you just stop touching me?!" I swatted her hand away. This happened every night, every day! Making fun of me. I lost all of my patience with them. "All of you are always ignoring me, and when you're not ignoring me, you're mocking me! Well, I have had it up to here with that!" I shouted. I turned towards Lydia and my mother and snarled: "And you….you two have no right to criticize me! Both of you are incompetent, lazy, and rude and are the last people on earth I would marry if I were a man! Oh, how I do pity father for marrying someone like you, mother!" They all just stared at me, dumbfounded. Here was Mary, the girl who barely said anything, yelling at the top of her lungs about how irritated she was with her family. _Serves you all right!_ I thought. With my little outburst finished, I stalked out of the room, only to bump into my cousin, Mr. Collins.

"Oh, ah, hello um…Mary..." he said awkwardly. I threw him a dirty look and pushed past him and went straight up to my room. As soon as I got there, I slammed the door and began to cry, sliding down the wall until I was curled up in a little ball on the floor. After what seemed like hours, I pulled myself together and thought about what I was going to do. _I don't ever __want__ to see them again,_ I thought. _After an outburst like that I don't think I even __could__ see them again. _So I sat there and started to think about how I could possibly deal with my family. Suddenly, a dangerous yet appealing idea occurred to me; what if I ran away? No one would miss me, and I wouldn't really miss anyone here, except maybe for father. Father was the only one who partly understands me. I debated for awhile, and then finally came up with my answer. "Tonight," I whispered, "I will steal a horse from the stable and I will run far, far away from here, where I will never have to see my family again."


	2. Slinking through the Shadows

The clock struck midnight, and everyone was fast asleep, except me. I got out of my bed and quickly packed some of my things into a sack, including all of the money I had saved. I took a deep breath and slowly, gently, opened the door. The hallway was very dark, but I was too afraid to carry a candle, for fear of someone seeing the candle light and catching me. I took another deep breath and crept out of my room and down the hallway. Every board in the wooden floor creaked as I walked, leaving me more anxious than ever. The entire house was so quiet, and my heart beat so loudly, I thought that all of the occupants must be able to hear my heart pounding in my chest. I was standing right in front of Lydia's room, and I smirked at her door, knowing that I would never have to deal with her or her unfair comments again.

After ten minutes of slinking down the hallway, I finally reached the stairs. _Here comes the tricky part,_ I thought. I carefully and slowly climbed down the stairs, but I had forgotten one thing: there was a particular stair at the bottom that made an exceptionally loud noise when walked on. Because I was nervous and, quite frankly, terrified that someone would find me, I gave a small, but audible cry when I stepped on the stair. Someone with a candle was advancing toward me. My first instinct was to run, but I kept perfectly still. After what could have been hours or minutes, the person, whoever it was, went back into their room. As soon as I knew that he or she was gone, I bolted out of the house as fast as I could without making a sound.

As soon as I reached the stable, I let out my breath, not realizing that I had been holding it for quite some time now. I walked in and led my favorite mare out of the stable. I quickly mounted her and cast a glance back towards the house. _Goodbye forever,_ I thought. Then, with a determined look on my face I set out towards the road, away from the house without a single


	3. The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

It was dawn. I had been riding all night, and I was very tired. I came upon an inn by the seashore. The seagulls where chirping. White, foamy waves splashed on the rocks. Everything seemed peaceful. I dismounted. There was no stable, so I tied my horse up to the sign reading "The Admiral Benbow Inn," which was the name of the place. I gathered up all of my belongings and went inside.

"Excuse me, but may I have a room for a couple nights?" I asked the women behind a desk, who I assumed to be the innkeeper or the innkeeper's wife.

"Yes, of course," said the lady behind the counter. "By the way, my name is Mrs. Hawkins.

"I'm Mary," I replied. She frowned and asked me how old I was. I told her I was nineteen. Mrs. Hawkins didn't ask any more questions, but offered me some tea on the house, saying I looked very tired. I gladly accepted the offer, and sat down on a nearby chair. I looked around the parlor and spied a huge man with a scraggly old beard, sitting by the fireplace and downing a bottle of rum. I turned away, disgusted. What kind of place had I come to? After 15 minutes, a handsome young man came to deliver me tea.

"Here," he said, as he handed me the tea. I smiled politely and took if from him.

"I'm James, my mother is the innkeeper here," said James with a warm smile. "But you can call me Jim." He had jet-black hair and cool, deep, blue eyes. He couldn't be more than seventeen, though he was very handsome, more so than Mr. Bingley or any of the officers I had seen. _If Lydia or Kitty were here, _I thought, _they would already be trying to flirt with him. _

"I'm Mary," I replied.

"Pleasure to meet you, Mary. What's a young, pretty lass like yourself doing around here?"

I raised an eyebrow. I opened my mouth with the intention of giving him a sharp response for what I thought as inappropriate flattery, but was cut off by the man near the fireplace. He was bellowing an old sailor's song, one that I had heard before:

"_Fifteen men on the dead man's chest_

_Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum_

_Drink and the devil has done for the rest_

_Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum"_

I was quite startled, but Jim seemed to ignore it. He leaned towards me and whispered, "That's Billy Bones. He's been here for quite some time now and hasn't paid a single penny. No one really knows much about him, but he tells some of the most gruesome sea-faring stories I've ever heard. He always sings that damned song when he's drunk, which is most of the time." Jim told Mary about how he didn't speak to anyone, and how he had paid Jim a four penny to keep a lookout for a "one-legged sailor." Bones had insisted on everyone calling him "Captain". There was an old sea chest he had, but no one had ever seen the captain open it. I listened intently, nodding every so often. Jim also told me that not long before my arrival, a man known as Black Dog had come to the Benbow wanting to talk to the captain, saying he was an old shipmate. What was supposed to be a talk ended up being a brawl, and Bones was injured. He had suffered a stroke because of too much rum, but that didn't stop him from drinking the vile substance. When Jim had finished explaining to me what was going on, my eyes were wide with shock and my nose was wrinkled with disgust.

"Good lord, he seems like a despicable man!" I exclaimed.

"He is!" remarked Jim. "The only one who is not afraid of his wrath is our good friend Dr. Livesey. He was the one who had diagnosed Bones's stroke and told him not to drink any more rum. Good fellow, he is. You would like him. He is very clever and intelligent." He turned towards me and smiled, "Just like you seem to be." I blushed, this time not rebuking him for his flattery. I told him that I had run away from my family and that I wouldn't regret my decision or even miss anyone back home. I told him about how mean my mother and Lydia were, and how no one could ever understand me. He was surprised, but he seemed to find my reasons acceptable.

"With the way you describe your sisters and your mum, I can't say I blame you for running away," he remarked. I told him how everyone said that I was an embarrassment to the family because I wasn't pretty or clever, and how my sister Jane was considered the prettiest and best daughter of us all. After telling him all this, I hung my head dejectedly and sagged my shoulders.

"What your family says isn't true. I think that you're very clever," Jim said. He lifted up my chin and looked me straight in the eye whispered, "And I think you're very pretty too." I blushed, and so did he.

"What does Jane look like anyway?" he asked.

"She has ice blue eyes with long, thick, blond-brown hair," I replied.

"Hmmm…" Jim said with mock thoughtfulness. "Sounds okay. I still think you're much prettier though." I smiled sheepishly and blushed again. We chatted about several other topics until it was very late.

"Well, I've had fun conversing with you, but I'm afraid I should be going to bed," I said. Jim flashed me a brilliant smile and replied, "I've had fun too. Let's do this again tomorrow."

We both said our goodnights and parted. As I was walking up the stairs, Jim called my name; I turned and he said, not without affection, "Mary, I think we are going to be good friends."

"I think so too, Jim," I replied warmly. "Good night, Jim." Later that night, when I had changed and crawled into my bed, I smiled and thought about how sweet Jim was. _This is the best decision I've ever made in my life. _Comforted by that knowledge, I fell asleep with a contented smile on my face.


	4. The Death of a Captain

It had been three weeks since my arrival at the Benbow, and Jim and I had come to be the best of friends. We both had many similar interests, and had some intense battles of wit. Our affection for one another had grown in the past weeks. I had met Dr. Livesey, and he was indeed a charming fellow, and I enjoyed his company, as well as Mrs. Hawkins's. Unfortunately, Jim's father had passed away due to an illness, which had a drastic effect on Jim. He did not cry, though I knew he was suffering. I did the best I could to comfort him, and because of that, we had become closer than ever before.

I woke up one morning and went downstairs to see Jim, finding him standing in the doorway with a melancholy look on his face. I knew he must be thinking about his father. "Hello Jim," I whispered.

"Hello Mary," he sighed. "I was just thinking about my father." I looked at him but said nothing, for I didn't know what I could possibly say to ease his grief. We stood there for awhile, in companionable silence, until Jim and I spotted a man walking towards the inn. I had never seen someone in such poor shape. He was clearly blind, for he had a walking stick before him. The stranger wore an old, tattered sea-cloak, and his figure looked deformed. He came up to us and called out with a very sing-songy voice:

"Will any kind friend inform a poor blind man, who has lost the precious sight of his eyes in the gracious defense of his native country, England, and God bless King George! – where or in what part of this country he may now be?"

"You are at the Admiral Benbow," I said.

"At Black Hill Cove, my good man," said Jim.

"I hear two voices," said the blind beggar. "Will you give me your hands, my kind young friends, and lead me in?"

Jim and I held out our hands for the blind man to grab, and the blind man promptly grabbed it with his own, and not gently. I was very shocked by his strength, and I tried to break free of his grip. The blind man then pulled both me and Jim close to him and said, "Now boy, you and the lass take me to the captain."

Jim responded "Sir, upon my word, I dare not."

"Oh," sneered the blind man, "Take me straight, or I'll break your arm." And with that, he wrenched Jim's arm so hard that Jim cried out.

"You wouldn't dare," I growled, for I wouldn't let anything happen to Jim. I had become quite protective of him since his father's death.

"Quiet lass or I'll snap your arm as well!" shouted the blind man.

"We'd better do as he says Mary," Jim whispered. I nodded. "Sir," said Jim, "It is for yourself, I mean, the captain is not what he used be. He sits with a drawn cutlass. Another gentleman—"

"Come on now, march!" interrupted the blind man. His voice was harsh and icy, even more so than Mr. Darcy's. I was terribly frightened, not just for my life but for Jim's as well. Jim and I quickly obeyed him, walking into the inn and towards the parlor, where Bones sat, guzzling rum. The blind man squeezed our hands even tighter, and leaned all of his weight on us, which was almost more than we could carry, even for Jim and me.

The blind man hissed, "Lead me straight upon to him, and when I am in view, cry out, 'Here is a friend for you, Bill.' And if you don't, then I'll do this." He then grabbed Jim's arm and gave it a violent twist, and it was all I could do not to hit the wretched blind beggar. I was terrified, and for a moment had forgotten my terror of the captain. With one quick glance at Jim, we led the blind man into the parlor.

As soon as we entered, Jim cried out the words the blind man had instructed him to say. The captain reaction to the blind man was immediate; the drunken sleepiness had vanished from his face and was replaced by a look not of fear, but of sickness. The captain struggled to get up, but was unsuccessful. The blind man told the captain to stay where he was. The blind man ordered Jim to take the captain's left hand and bring it closer to him. I was left to hold the beggar, and by now I was trembling with fear. The tension in the parlor was so great that I felt that I could not breathe. As soon as Jim moved the captain's hand closer to the beggar, he gave something to the captain. "And now that's done," said the blind man. He let go of my arm and with shocking precision, the beggar skipped out of the inn. I just stood there, fear keeping me rooted to the spot. I had no idea of what just had happened; all I knew was that it wasn't good.

It was a long while before any of us spoke, but then the captain looked at his palm and exclaimed, "Ten o'clock! Six hours, we'll do them yet!" The captain leapt to his feet, only to collapse on the floor. Jim called to mother, but I stayed still. I knew it was all in vain; Captain Billy Bones was dead.


	5. A Tearful Goodbye

Jim and his mother came down to the parlor to see the captain's body. Jim was crying. I knew that although he didn't like the captain, Jim had so recently experienced loss and this must be hard for him to see a second death in so short a time.

"We need to leave," I said, worry and fear creeping into my voice. Mrs. Hawkins and Jim both nodded their agreement. We raced out of the inn and down the road to another inn called the Hamlet, not far away. When the three of us got there, we were out of breath and panting. Mrs. Hawkins immediately started to ask some of the patrons to help us, while Jim and I stood right in the doorway. I was trembling with fear, and Jim put his arm around me to steady me.

"There, there," he whispered. "I won't let anything happen to you." I leaned against him and surveyed the parlor of the inn. It seemed as if we weren't the only ones who were asking for help tonight, for I saw two other people talking to the innkeeper with worried expressions on their faces. They looked familiar. I squinted, trying to get a better look when I realized that they were none other than my father and my sister, Jane! I gasped.

"What's wrong Mary?" Jim asked, his eyes full of concern.

"Over there," I whispered fiercely and nodded in the direction of my father and Jane. "Those two are my father and my sister, Jane." Jim's eyebrow raised, but he said nothing. "You have got to hide me, quick!" I spoke urgently. "I don't want them to find—" Too late.

"Mary! Oh thanks heavens your safe!" exclaimed Jane. She rushed over to hug me, but I recoiled. The look on Jane's face went from overjoyed to hurt.

"What's wrong, Mary? I missed you so much, and so did the others! We all want you home!" Jane said, hurt and confusion clouding her eyes

"Really? After all the things they said about me, you honestly expect to believe that they missed me!?" I spat.

"Oh Mary, please try to understand, we really do love you, it's just…."

"Just what? It's just that I'm an embarrassment to the family? Well, I'm not going back with you! "

"Mary," Jim said. I turned to face him. "I know you're hurt, but you have to forgive them. They're your family."

"But I want to stay with you, Jim!"

"I wish I could say yes, but if I did then that would mean I would be putting your life in danger. I don't want anything to ever happen to you. If you love me, then you'll forgive your family and go back with them. I promise, I'll write to you as soon as I can. Please, you need to leave soon. I don't want you getting hurt. Promise me you'll forgive your parents?" Jim said, his voice choked with emotion.

I sighed and agreed reluctantly to go back with my family, though it may take me a long time before I forgive them. Then Jim said something I thought I would never hear in my life. He said that as soon as he could, he would come to Longbourn and marry me. Until then, he would write me letters as often as he could. I was overjoyed, and tears streamed down my face. He kissed my hand and left with his mother to return to the Benbow Inn. I climbed in the carriage along with Jane and my father, and we all headed home. Jane and I looked at one another, and a silent apology passed between us. I knew that even though I may never be as pretty as Jane or as clever as Elizabeth, I would always have Jim, who thought I was the most amazing girl ever. I closed my eyes, leaned back, and smiled to myself. _I love happy endings,_ I thought, and drifted into sleep.


End file.
